In 1962, 31 year old Jim Jones rose to prominence with the services he held at the People's Temple in Redwood Valley California. Jones' dramatic enactments of healings, miracles, even resurrections from the dead caught fever pitch among his followers- yet in the end it culminated in the death of 918 people in the greatest mass cult suicide in history. Could 32 year old Todd Bentley be leading his followers down the same path?

Monday, July 21, 2008

Bentley's connections to the Prophetic Movement!

In addition to his own estranged beliefs, his similiarities to Jim Jones, and the personality cult that has been built around his totalitarian style of ministry, another reason to be concerned about Todd Bentley are the people he is connected with. In the same way that O.L. Jaggers of the Latter Rain Movement pronounced over Jim Jones in 1955 that he had a very special prophetic calling upon his life- Todd Bentley was mentored by Bob Jones who taught him how to take trips to heaven each day and pronounced a very special healing ministry upon his life.

Bob Jones is actually the one that introduced Todd Bentley to the Angel Emma. Jones informed Bentley that she is the same angel that birthed the prophetic movement in the 1980's and furthermore that she also guided the ministry of William Branham. Jones himself claims to take trips to the Third heaven each day. Jones is a big proponent of the false teaching that there is coming a second Pentecost even greater than the first. This Latter Rain teaching leads Jones to conclude that prophets and apostles in these last days will be greater than the ones that lived in New Testament times. Each of these teachings by Bob Jones is also held by Rick Joyner and Mike Bickle.

While Jones teachings are clearly flawed, there is more to Jones than just flawed teachings. In 1991, some women came forward and said that Jones had used his prophetic ministry to get them to strip naked in his office so that they could receive a word from him and then after they had stripped naked fondled them sexually as he gave them the prophetic word they were seeking. Jones admitted guilt. However, John Wimber founder of the Vineyard Church which Jones was a part of at that time said that Jones did have a very prophetic gifting on his life and thus told his followers to judge him by his gifting and not by his character.

This statement was contradictory to one that had occurred a couple years prior in the ministry of Paul Cain, the only member of the prophetic movement who also had involvement with the Voice of Healing Movement in the 1940's and 1950's. When Cain made a false prophecy in the late 1980's, Wimber came to his defense urging people to judge him on his character and not his prophetic competence. Years after Wimber's death in 1997 we would find reason to judge Cain's character. For years Paul Cain had led people to believe that he was "a eunuch of the Lord." That God had supernaturally taken all sexual desire out of his libido. In 2004, however, it was revealed that Cain had concocted this story to cover up the fact that he was a homosexual. Cain has not been restored to ministry yet because he prophesied the "Great End Times harvest" would begin in Florida he was invited by Todd Bentley to the platform to address the audience at the revival- this in full view of his lack of repentance.

Both Cain and Jones have had significant influence on the ministry of Rick Joyner of Morningstar Ministries in Fort Mill, South Carolina. In March 2008, Joyner held a conference to honor the Fathers of the Voice of healing revival in the 1940's and 50's. In honoring them, Joyner did acknowledge some of their faults exposing some of the false doctrines that the man held to. However, the general sense I have from talking to someone who attended the conference is that Joyner promoted these men as men of great power that had to come from God. In an online advertisement for the conference, Joyner states "I was given a dream that if we would honor the Fathers, the Lord would release revival to America within 6 months. This will be a great time to celebrate some of the men and women of God in our times, and also to receive an impartation from them." The purpose of this conference was to honors the Fathers of the Voice of Healing Revival which (with the exception of Oral Roberts and Paul Cain- who were not guest speakers at the conference) were all dead. So when Joyner says it will be a great time to honor and receive an impartation from them- was he promoting the notion of receiving an impartation from the dead? Shortly after the conference, "revival in Lakeland broke out on April 2. Morningstar had a "Holy Spirit Outbreak" follow three weeks shortly after.

Prior to Joyner's dream, Bob Jones had told Todd Bentley in December the Third Wave, the Winds of Change would be coming in 2008. Jones prophesied that it would be a global move. As we see both Joyner's dream and Jones prophecy have come true- by one of their very close associates and students, Todd Bentley. That brings us to the question of whether or not this is indeed a move of God or a well thought out scheme of a few men who made prophecies and had one of their own self-fulfill that prophecy.

In my next post, I will deal with the Voice of Healing Revival of the 1940's and 50's, and probe into the teachings and practices of deceased men like William Branham (whose mantle Bentley claims), A.A. Allen, Jack Coe, and the still living Oral Roberts. In that post, I will expose the very dangerous doctrines that arose from the movement- and formed two movements that are still trying to infiltrate the church to this day- The Latter Rain Movement and the Word of Faith Movement.